Everyone knows stress is bad for us. Chronic stress over weeks
and months hammers the immune system, among other things.
But researchers at Stanford University recently showed that short-
term stress actually serves to stimulate immune system readiness.
The study, done in rats, was able to outline in detail how a
massive redeployment of immune cells throughout the body was set in
motion by the release of hormones from the adrenal glands in
response to a stress-induced event.
Firdaus Dhabhar, an associate professor of psychiatry and
behavioral science at Stanford, along with colleagues at several
institutions, documented how the release of three stress hormones --
norephinephrine, epinephrine and corticosterone -- at different
times each activated and directed the movement of different immune
cells from reservoirs in the spleen and bone marrow into the
bloodstream and then to various tissues.
The report was published online in June through the journal of
Psychoneuroendocrinology. An earlier study of surgical patients by
Dhabhar had suggested that some who had stronger short-term stress
reactions to the operation healed more quickly than those with a
muted response.